AGORA
VOL 1 ISSUE 3
Jan 2012 ~Jan 2013
Dean John Craig Speaks to Greek Parliamentary Committees (see page 3) From L to R: Dr. John Craig, Dean of Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences; His Excellency Robert Peck, Canada’s Ambassador to Greece; George Agouridis, Chief Legal Counsel; Stavros Niarchos Foundation (Athens); Adonis Georgiadis, MP, Chair of Parliamentary Committee; Dr. Theodoros Papatheodorou, Deputy Minister of Education and Dr. André Gerolymatos, Director SNF Centre for Hellenic Studies
Volume 1 Issue 3 2012
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elcome to the third issue of “AGORA”, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Centre for Hellenic Studies at SFU’s annual newsletter. “AGORA” is the Greek name for a public space. It is the place where citizens come together, where ideas and goods are exchanged and where politics are created. This newsletter informs students, faculty and the community at large who share our interest in Hellenism. We highlight those individuals and groups that have joined us on our Hellenic journey and have impacted our program. Their contribution and enthusiasm have made the journey worthwhile.
“ENGAGING THE WORLD” Dean John Craig Speaks to Greek Parliament
Updates from our Partners in China Page 8
Page 3
Meetings with Greek President Dr. Karolos Papoulias Page 3
The SNF Centre for Hellenic Studies Arts and Letters Committee First Event Page 11
Greek Tourism Minister Olga Kefalogianni’s Press Conference Page 4
Public Lectures and Events: Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ Speaks to The Fraser Institute Page 12
Celebrating 70 Years of Friendship with Greece
SNF Centre Hosts “The Debt Crisis Conference”
Page 5
Page 13
Costa-Gavras and the New App on the Parthenon
The 2nd Annual Washington Oxi Day Celebration
Page 5
The Hellenistic World and the Emergence of the Silk Road
Page 14
Page 15
Page 6
Special Insert (16 pages) Western Consortium for Hellenic Studies in Seattle Page 7
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Student News Page 18
Cover Story
Greek President Dr. Karolos Papoulias Learns About the Greek Tutor Developed at SNF Centre’s New Media Lab By Dr. André Gerolymatos and Dr. Eirini Kotsovili
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From L to R: Dr. John Craig, Dean of Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences; His Excellency Robert Peck, Canada’s Ambassador to Greece; George Agouridis, Chief Legal Counsel; Stavros Niarchos Foundation (Athens); Adonis Georgiadis, MP, Chair of Parliamentary Committee; Dr. Theodoros Papatheodorou, Deputy Minister of Education and Dr. André Gerolymatos, Director SNF Centre for Hellenic Studies
Dean John Craig Speaks in Greek Parliament By Dr. André Gerolymatos
D
n the afternoon of November 27, 2012 a delegation from SFU’s Stavros Niarchos Foundation Centre for Hellenic Studies had the honour of being received by his Excellency, the President of the Hellenic Republic, Mr. Karolos Papoulias. The team was comprised by Prof. John Craig (Dean, Arts and Social Sciences), Prof. André Gerolymatos (director, SNF Centre for Hellenic Studies) and his wife, Mrs Beverley Gerolymatos (Founder and Chair of the Arts and Letters Committee), Dr. Dimitris Krallis (associate Professor, History), Mr. Costa Dedegikas (Technology Manager, SNF New Media Lab) and Dr. Eirini Kotsovili(Language Program Co-ordinator); it was also joined by his Excellency, the Ambassador of Canada to Greece, Mr. Robert W. Peck. The goal of this meeting, ranking among the highlights of the SFU team’s visit to Athens, was to update the President on the progress of the Hellenic Studies programs and future plans for teaching Greek language and culture since Dr. Gerolymatos’ previous meeting with him on an earlier trip to Greece. Mr. Papoulias was greatly impressed by the scope and depth of work currently undertaken by the Centre for Hellenic Studies and by its prospective plans to expand its innovative teaching and other educational activities, and commended Dr. Gerolymatos for his decisive contribution to the program’s ongoing success. The delegation was deeply honoured by the President’s flattering words, by his extended hospitality-which went far beyond the typically short duration dictated by protocol for such meetings-and by his continuing keen interest in the Centre’s work.
ean John Craig addressed a rare joint session of the Greek Parliamentary committees of Education and Greeks Abroad. The significance of the occasion was underscored by the speech of the Deputy Minister of Education Mr. Papatheodosiou, who stressed the importance of the relationship between the Stavros Niarchos Foundation for Hellenic Studies at Simon Fraser University with the Greek State. Dr. Craig, in his presentation to the two committees, described the work of the Centre and the strong support of the university for its activities. He praised the faculty and staff of the Centre noting that efforts have led to the establishment of the largest Centre of Greek Studies in North America and possibly the world. Dr. Craig acknowledged his and the university’s gratitude to the Stavros Niarchos Foundation for their Greek President Dr. Papoulias with the SFU delegation and the Canadian generous endowment that led to the creation of the Cen- Ambassador to Greece, His Excellency Robert Peck. tre but equally he underlined the humanitarian achievements of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation in Greece and throughout the world. SI MON F RA S E R UN I V E R SI T Y T H E S TAV R O S N I A R C H O S FO U N D AT I O N C E N T R E FO R H E L L E N I C S T U D I E S
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Meeting with Ministries of Tourism, Culture and Education By James Horncastle
From L to R: Mr. Konstantinos Arvanitopoulos, Minister of Education, Religious Affairs, Culture and Sports, Mrs. Olga Kefalogianni, Minister of Tourism, Dr. Dimitris Krallis, Assistant Professor, SNF Centre for Hellenic Studies, Dr. Andre Gerolymatos, Director SNF Centre for Hellenic Studies, Dr. John Craig, Dean of Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and Mr. Costa Dedegikas, Technology Manager, SNF New Media Lab
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hile it is true that Greece faces a tough road to recovery, one that will take many years, even in this dark period it has much to offer the world. Technological developments, primarily through the development of applications and programs where individuals can interact with Greece and its history, are a primary conduit for this development.
continuing the proposed initiative on edutourism.” Mr. Dedegikas further explained that: “In so doing, the SNF’s New Media Lab would be able to help Greece leverage its cultural heritage to not only promote Greece’s contribution to world history, but also to help people see beyond Greece’s current financial difficulties.”
It was with the goal of demonstrating what Greece has to offer to the world that Costa Dedegikas, Technology Manager of the SNF New Media Lab, went to Greece to meet with the Greek Minister of Tourism Olga Kefalogianni in the summer and late fall of 2012. This trip was based on a previously established relationship between the SNF’s New Media Lab and the Ministries of Culture and Tourism, established during the Centre’s visit to Greece in February 2012. As Mr. Dedegikas explained: “My initial goal was to follow up with my meetings with the Ministry of Tourism and see if they would be interested in
Greek Minister of Tourism Olga Kefalogianni speaking at the Press Conference that unveiled the SFU / Ministry of Tourism’s joint initiative, Amazing Athens, at the New Acropolis Museum.
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Currently, the fruit of these discussions is being developed in the form of an app outlining the major sites and scenes in Athens. This will ensure that individuals who visit the city, or who simply wish to increase their knowledge of modern Athens, will see what the city has to offer. As Mr. Dedegikas succinctly stated, the app will “showcase the best that Greece has to offer in an exciting new way using mobile applications, which was only possible due to the SNF’s New Media Lab.” One can only look forward to what new developments, and applications, this burgeoning partnership between the SNF’s New Media Lab and the Ministry of Tourism will bring.
Celebrating 70 Years of Friendship with Greece
Today, the restored Chief’s Crest Pole is being displayed at the Benaki Museum in Athens before being moved to its permanent location. The Stavros Niarchos Centre for Hellenic Studies would like to thank everyone who helped make this project possible.
Costa-Gavras and the New App on the Parthenon By Dr. André Gerolymatos
Chief’s Crest Pole Photo taken by Chris Stewart
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anada takes great pride in the image that it presents to the international community. Not only does Canada present the image of a modern state, but it also seeks to highlight the many different cultural groups that make up the Canadian polity. Likely with this goal in mind, in 1975, British Columbia Premier W.A. Bennett gave an aboriginal totem pole, called the Chief’s Crest Poll, to the Canadian Ambassador’s residence in Greece. In 2012 the Stavros Niarchos Centre for Hellenic Studies discovered that the Chief’s Crest Pole was in a state of disrepair. Time, the elements, and even ants had taken their toll on the pole. As the only Hellenic Studies department in British Columbia, the Stavros Niarchos Centre felt that it had a responsibility to help restore this excellent representation of Aboriginal art. Proper restoration of the Chief’s Crest Pole required that a professional restorer, Andrew Todd, go to Greece and undertake the process first hand – a costly endeavor. Luckily, members of Vancouver’s local Greek community provided the financial backing needed to get Andrew Todd to Greece and obtain the materials needed to properly restore the pole. Specifically, the project would not have been accomplished without the generous contributions of: Jim Heras; C. Harry Katevatis; Bill and Golfo Tsakumis; Faculty of Environment, SFU; SNF Centre for Hellenic Studies, SFU.
In Paris (from L to R) Dr. André Gerolymatos, Costa-Gavras
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r. Costa-Gavras, the Greek-French filmmaker, has a long history with Hellenic Studies at Simon Fraser University. In 2005 Mr. Gavras took part in the Alexander Onassis Foundation Seminar Series, which brought him to Vancouver. During the course of that visit Mr. Gavras premiered his film, The Ax. In addition, the popular filmmaker took part in a question and answer session with three hundred students and members of the public organized by Hellenic Studies. Three years later, in 2008, Mr. Gavras was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Simon Fraser University for his life achievements in the arts. In 2012 Dr. André Gerolymatos and Costa Dedegikas travelled to Paris and worked with Mr. Gavras to develop an interactive application for the iPad. The application, which is based on Gavras’ short film on the Parthenon will display a visual history of the monument. In addition, Mr. Gavras will visit Vancouver in 2013 as a guest of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Centre for Hellenic Studies to premier his new film, Capital, and wrap up the development of the Parthenon application.
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The Hellenistic World and the Emergence of the Silk Road Yang Ju-ping, Professor of Ancient History, Nankai University, China
Abstract:
T
he conquests of Alexander and the formation of the Hellenistic world stimulated and accelerated cultural and economic exchanges among the ancient civilizations of Central Asia, India, the eastern Mediterranean, and Europe. Before Zhang Qian’s adventurous exploration of the West in the late 2nd century B.C., three trade routes connecting Asia, Africa and Europe had already come into existence. Hellenistic culture had been widely received, had spread over areas formerly controlled and influenced by Greeks and Macedonians, and had even, to some extent, converged with eastern cultures. Centered on the Oxus River, the Greeks of Bactria expanded their sphere of influence into India in the south and to the Seres and Phryni in the east. Perhaps they had even reached the Tarim Basin by crossing the Pamirs. All these developments contributed to create a solid and wide basis for the opening and expanding of the Silk Road as well as for further exchanges and fusions between East and West in economy and cultures.
“This long anticipated paper by Professor Yang Ju-ping is remarkable on two accounts: it is symbolic of the merging of thought and culture that it so adeptly discusses, and it is constituent of the quality of scholarship that can be achieved when both Eastern and Western perspectives on ancient history are melded in a work of lucid, investigative logic.” —Brian Olsen
Silk Road - An ancient trade route connects Europe and Asia.
Scan me to access the full article or continue to read on the next page.
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IT IS WELL KNOWN THAT ZHANG QIAN PLAYED A MOST IMPORTANT ROLE IN THE OPENING OF THE SILK ROAD DURING THE REIGN OF THE GREAT HAN EMPEROR WUDI (汉武帝). HOWEVER, OF
THE IMMEDIATE AIM
ZHANG QIAN IN HIS EXPLORATION OF THE REMOTE WESTERN REGIONS HAD NOT BEEN TO OPEN THE
DOOR FOR THE SILK TRADE, BUT TO MAKE CONTACT WITH THE TRIBES OF THE ORDER TO MOUNT A JOINT ATTACK ON THEIR COMMON ENEMY, THE
YUEZHI(YU-CHI月氏)
XIONGNU
IN
TRIBES, BECAUSE THE
EMPEROR HAD THE AMBITION TO EXPAND HIS RULE WESTWARDS AND THUS TO CREATE A STRONG EMPIRE OF THE
HAN. THIS MIRRORS TO SOME EXTENT THE EASTWARD CONQUESTS OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT,
WHO HAD SET OUT NOT TO OBTAIN THE PRECIOUS SILK FROM THE FABLED LAND OF THE CONQUER THE EMPIRE OF
PERSIAN EMPIRE
ALEXANDER
AND AFTER THAT THE WHOLE INHABITED WORLD.
SERES,
ALTHOUGH
COLLAPSED WITHIN A FEW YEARS AFTER HIS DEATH, ONE NEW
WORLD APPEARED IN THE AREAS BETWEEN
MEDITERRANEAN
AND
BUT TO THE
HELLENISTIC
HINDU KUSH MTS.
AND THE
NORTHWEST INDIA. IT WAS THROUGH THIS WIDER WORLD THAT THE LINKAGE OF THE ALL SECTIONS OF THE LATER SILK ROAD INTO A ROAD NETWORK WOULD FINALLY BECOME POSSIBLE.
1. Contacts and Rumors: connections between Eastern and Western Civilizations before Alexander the Great Before the conquests of Alexander there were certainly some economic and cultural contacts, direct or indirect, between the main civilizations of the ancient world. In Greece in the late 5th or early 4th century rumors appeared about the Seres, a far-away people in the east.1 Although there was no certainty about its location, many ancient authors came to believe that the silk-producing country of the Seres was somewhere in the east.2 Thus, Seres could become a name for the Chinese in western accounts. The Greek historian Herodotus mentioned a brave Greek traveler, Aristeas, who was said to have gone through the land of the Scythians all the way to the country of the Issedones.3 According to some scholars, the country of 1
2
3
The name of the Seres is first mentioned by the Greek physician and historian Ctesias (5th/ 4th century B.C.). He once served at the court of Persia, where he probably heard of the Seres. The veracity of his material has been doubted by western scholars such as H. Yule and George Coedès, and the Chinese scholar Zhang Xinglang. H. Yule especially pointed out that the name appears only in the Bibliotheca of Photius. But the Greek word Seres was really known already since in Ctesias’ time. See H. Yule, Cathay and the Way Thither：being a collection of medieval notices of China，New ed., rev. throughout in the light of recent discoveries by Henri Cordier.(London: the Hakluyt Society. Vol. I. 1915)14; Zhang Xinglang, The Collection of the Historical Materials of Communications between China and the West (《中西交通史料汇编》), Vol. I (Beijing: Zhonghua Book Co. 1977) 17; George Coedès, Textes d'auteurs grecs et latins relatifs a l'Extrême-Orient （Paris: E. Leroux.1910; Chinese translation by Gengsheng, Beijing: Zhonghua Book Co. 1977）1-2. See also George Coedès, Textes d'auteurs grecs et latins relatifs a l'Extrême-Orient, Chinese translation, 1-54; 71-72. H. Yule, analyzing the related materials, came to the same conclusion; see H. Yule, Cathay and the Way Thither, Chinese translation, 11-12. Herodotus 4.13 -14.16. 1
the Issedones should be roughly located in the areas from the Ural Mountains eastwards to the region between the Tianshan and Altai Mountains, even as far as the Basin of the Tarim, Loulan, and Dunhuang.1 In the last century, pieces of silk have been discovered in a Celtic tomb of the 6th century B.C. in Germany,2 while
well-preserved examples of Chinese
embroidery work with Phoenix pictures together with bronze mirrors with 山characters on their backs were unearthed at the tombs of Pazyryk in the Altai mountains from around the 5th to the 3rd
century B.C.3 The fact that goods made in
ancient Central China could be discovered by archaeologists in Western Europe is an indication for the existence of the Eurasian Grassland Road in ancient times. It was the Scythians and other nomads moving in the areas from the Black Sea to the Aral Sea who made this belt of continuous grassland into an east-west route. But the Eurasian Grassland Road often changed its routes, which were, moreover, open or closed at irregular intervals, since the nomads had to move from one place to another on a yearly basis. Therefore, this Road was not and never became the main channel of communications between East and West. Already during the Aegean civilization (2nd millennium B.C.) Greeks began to have contacts with the nearby civilizations of Egypt and western Asia. But it was not until the time of the Persian Empire that a self-conscious and mature Hellenic civilization interacted with the eastern civilizations on a more or less reciprocal basis. In the middle of the 6th century B.C., the Persian Empire arose in Iran and expanded widely, mainly in an eastern and western direction. After the Persians had conquered the coastal Greek city-states of Asia Minor, the Greeks of Europe faced a trial of life-or-death. At the same time, however, this conflict and all the contacts preceding and following it made the Greeks understand the Persians much better than before. Some Greeks, like Herodotus, visited Babylon and some others served at the court of Persia, like Ctesias in his role of royal physician, or Scylax who earlier on had been sent to navigate along the Indus River and circumnavigate Arabia around 510 B.C.4 There were even some Greeks who voluntarily migrated to Bactria and Sogdiana, apart from those whom the Persians forced to do so.5 The domain of the Persian Empire was vast and stretched from India to the Aegean Sea and from Egypt to the Caspian. To 1
2 3
4 5
See Sun Peiliang, ‘The Trade Route and the Rumors about Central Asia’, included in his Papers on the Relations between China and the outside World (Beijing: World Affairs Press, 1985) I, 3-25; Paul Pédech, La Géographie des Grecs (《古代希腊人的地理学》), Chinese translation by Cai Zongxia (Beijing: the Commercial Press, 1983) 22; Wangzhilai, An Historical Outline of Central Asia (Hunan Educational Press, 1986) 53, note 1; Ma Yong, Wang Binghua, ‘The Region of Xinjiang in China from the 7th to the 2nd century B. C.’ Journal of Central Asia 3 (1990) 1-16. Jorg Biel, ‘Treasure from a Celtic Tomb’, National Geographic 157, 3 (March 1980) 429-438. С.И. Руденко, ‘On the Ancient Relations between China and the Tribes in the Altai’, Acta Archaeologica Sinica (Journal of Archeology) 2 (1957) 7-48. Herodotus 4. 44. For example, the Barcaeans mentioned by Herodotus (4. 204). As Greek colonists in Libya, they had been enslaved and removed from Egypt by the Persian army. Later, Darius I forced them to migrate to Bactria. In Herodotus’ time, their descendants still remained there, apparently by their own free will. Another example can be seen in the Branchidae, mentioned by Strabo (11. 11. 4). Having betrayed their homeland, they voluntarily followed Xerxes back to Persia, and were later settled in Sogdiana by the king. 2
consolidate his control of the Empire, Darius I built a system of imperial roads on the basis of old roads which led into all directions. The most famous one was the Royal Road in the western part of the Empire. Starting at Susa, one of the capitals of the empire, and passing through Mesopotamia, it ended at Sardis, or rather at Ephesus on the coast of Asia Minor. The road was over 2000 kilometers long with numerous post houses (22 of which have been verified). Another important road led to the east along the track of the ancient Mesopotamia-Media road, and then further through Bactria to India.1 It was by this road that the precious lapis lazuli of the eastern mountains in Bactria was transported to Mesopotamia and India2. The evidence that Greek coins had been circulating in Bactria before the conquest of Alexander suggests the possibility of long-distance trade between the eastern Mediterranean and the Hindu Kush Mountains already in the classical period.3 As a matter of fact, the road linking Central Asia to India later became the western part of the Silk Road. Darius I also dredged the canal joining the Nile with the Red Sea, which had not been finished by the Egyptian Pharaoh Necho of the 26th dynasty. Thus, roads and waterways strengthened the connections between the different regions of the Persian Empire and beyond.4 Though the Greeks finally won the war against the Persians (449 B.C.), this did not bring an end to the conflicts. On the contrary, both sides wanted to use all opportunities to interfere in their opponent’s inner affairs. The rivalries between the Greek city-states and the intrigues surrounding the succession to the throne at the Persian Court provided such opportunities. Two well-known instances of such meddling in each other’s affairs were on the one hand the Greek mercenary army invited by Cyrus the Younger to advance deep into the interior of the empire in 401-400 B.C., and on the other the Persian king declaring the so-called King’s Peace to extend his influence over the divided world of the Greek city-states in 386 B.C. More than half a century later Alexander had to deal with
thousands of Greek mercenary soldiers fighting on the Persian
side.5 These mutual interferences, whether hostile or peaceful, certainly testify to a strengthening of connections between the two civilizations. There were other civilizations in Eurasia in the 4th century B.C., but these did not have many opportunities for contact each other, either because of their geographical isolation or because of their relative underdevelopment. The Romans were advancing southward to unify Italy, and perhaps they had heard a little about the East through the Greeks in southern Italy, 1 2 3
4
5
See J. Wiesehofer, Ancient Persia. From 550 BC to 650 AD (London: I. B. Tauris Publishers, 1996) 6-77. F. L. Holt, Alexander the Great and Bactria (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1989) 28 A farmer discovered a pot full of encrusted coins in 1966 that turned out to be mostly Athenian tetradrachms of the classical period. The total amount of the coins could never be ascertained, but at least 150 were seen. This Greek money must have circulated in Bactria as bullion before the time of Alexander’s invasion. A similar hoard was found on the east side of Kabul in 1933. It may have included a thousand coins of Greek city-states. F.L. Holt, Into the Land of Bones: Alexander the Great in Afghanistan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005) 141. The Persian army invading Greece in 480 B. C. came from all the satrapies of the Empire, and some of the contingents even from as far as Bactria and India. This underlines the important role of the Royal Roads. For example, the many Greek mercenaries who fought for Persia in the battles of the Granicus, Issus, and Gaugamela; see in particular, Arrian, 1. 14-16; 2. 7-13; 3. 11-15. 3
but as yet their vision hardly reached beyond the Italian Peninsula. India at the time was in the Period of Small States (6-4th centuries B.C.). The dominant region of the kingdom of Magadha, which gradually grew stronger, only occupied the areas along the Ganges, while Buddhism did not yet spread into the western parts of India. But the northwestern fringe of India under Persian rule did have some contacts with the outside world. China was still in the Warring-States Period (475-221 B.C.) with seven of the stronger states contending for hegemony and with no opportunity for any westward expansion. To sum up, by the 4th century B.C. some of the main areas of civilization in western Eurasia had some contacts with each other, with rumors circulating about others, but regular links or channels connecting the two ends of Eurasia did not yet exist. Knowledge, let alone understanding of the other, between West and East must have been superficial and very limited, if not outright mistaken. The Chinese vision of the western world did not go beyond what was described in the Chinese Bestiary (the Records of Mountains and Seas, Shanhai Jing,
((山海经)) and the Biography of King Mu
(Mutianzi zhuan,
《穆天子传》). Many Greeks did know something about the civilized countries of Egypt and Babylon, but they knew only a very little about India and practically nothing about China. Alexander imagined that beyond India there was the Great Ocean where
the East ended, and he had no idea that there were large stretches of land, for instance, beyond the River
Jaxartes (Syr Daria). On the whole, Alexander’s knowledge of the eastern world did not differ markedly from that of the Greeks of Herodotus’ time.1
2. The expansion of communications between East and West and the forming of the Eastern Hellenistic World after Alexander Alexander at the head of a Greco-Macedonian army started his conquest of the Persian Empire in 334 B.C. and in the following ten years he not only occupied practically the whole Persian domain, but also added some areas to it. The lands extending from the Mediterranean to the Indus and from the Caspian to the Red Sea had been almost completely brought under his rule. Although Alexander’s empire fell apart after his sudden death in 323 B.C. and was carved up by his successors, the pattern of Greco-Macedonian rule over local populations did not change. Greek culture usually held a dominant position in respect to local cultures, but a certain interaction and even fusion between Greek and eastern cultures became increasingly manifest. The forming of the Hellenistic world enormously facilitated communications among the various Hellenistic kingdoms themselves and between these and their non-Greek neighbors. The scope of cultural and economical exchanges extended even beyond the areas of political control. As a result, a new system of communications and trade routes arose centering on western Asia with the Mediterranean and India at its two ends. 1
Herodotus, 4. 40. 4
There were three main trade routes between East and West at the time. The northern route linked India and Bactria to the Black Sea. Goods were transported from India via Bactria, then along the Oxus to the Aral Sea, and from there further to the Black Sea. The middle route connecting India and Asia Minor in fact had two tracks: one started off from western India to the Persian Gulf by sea, then went up the Tigris River to Seleucia, one of the capitals of the Seleucid Kingdom; another ran by land from India across the Hindus Kush, passed by Bactra in modern Afghanistan, traversed the Iranian plateau, and descended to the same city of Seleucia. From here a road went westwards across the Syrian desert to Antioch on the Orontes in Syria, the other capital of the Seleucids, from where its branches turned west and south-west towards the Phoenician coast, and northwest across Asia Minor to finally reach Ephesus on the Aegean. A southern route linked India to Egypt by sea along the coasts of southern Iran and Arabia and through the Red Sea. From the head of the Red Sea at modern Aqaba a land road ran northward to Petra, Damascus, and Antioch, whilst the Gulf of Suez gave access to the Nile and to Alexandria.1 Here, king Ptolemy II of Egypt again dredged a canal through the desert connecting the Red Sea with the Nile so that Indian goods could be shipped along the river to Alexandria. The discovery of the monsoon in the Indian Ocean around the 1st century B.C. made the sea route look safer and more convenient.2 These three routes tallied more or less with the later routes of the western section of the Silk Road. There was only one section of the later Silk Road, namely the route from the Hexi Corridor to the Pamirs, that was not yet open at the time. But this unopened section was becoming shorter and shorter as an unforeseen result of the actions of both the Greeks and the Chinese. According to Strabo, the Greek ruler of Bactria, Euthydemus, and his son Demetrius
in the 2nd century B.C. “extended
their empire even as far as the Seres and the Phryni”.3 At that time, the land of the Seres was still regarded by the peoples of the west as the region, however vague and hazy, where silk was produced, and not as imperial China of the Han Dynasty. Some scholars have seen in the Phryni the Xiongnu nomads,4 but the influence of the Xiongnu had not yet reached the areas bordering on Bactria. Now that Euthydemus and Demetrius extended their power eastwards, the nearest areas across their eastern border should be the Pamir and the basin of Tarim. Reasonably, A. K. Narain accepted the suggestion of A. Cunningham and identified the Seres and the Phryni as Sule (Kashgar,疏勒) and Puli (蒲犁) respectively, recorded in the Collective Biographies of the West of The History of the Han Dynasty,5 because their locations were precisely in the 1
2 3 4 5
See W. W. Tarn, Hellenistic Civilization (London: Edward Arnold Publishers 1952) 241-5; F. W. Walbank, The Hellenistic World (Glasgow: William Collins Sons & Co. 1981) 199-200. Cf. Strabo, Geography, 2.1.11, 15; 11.7.3; Pliny, Natural History, 6.52. On the northern route, Strabo’s narrative is the clearest and most detailed, but W. W. Tarn firmly denied its existence. I prefer the opinions of the ancient authors. However, it should be noted that they believed that the Oxus river flowed into the Caspian Sea, whereas in reality it empties into the Aral Sea. See F. W. Walbank, The Hellenistic World, 200-4. Strabo, Geograph. 11.11.1. G. F. Hudson, Europe and China, 58 According to the Collective Biographies of the Xiongnu in the Records of the Grand Scribe, the Xiongnu defeated the formerly 5
districts of Kashgar (喀什) and Tashkurgan along the eastern side of the Pamir in today’s Xinjiang. Thus, before Zhang Qian arrived in Central Asia in the second half of the 2nd century B.C., the western section (i.e. to the west of the Pamir) of the Silk Road had actually already been opened. By then, both the political and cultural situations in the eastern Hellenistic world had changed considerably during the two centuries that had passed since the conquests of Alexander the Great. The legacy of Alexander the Great in Asia was almost entirely inherited by Seleucus I, one of his successors (c. 312-280 B.C.). However, because of the rise of the Maurya Empire, the Seleucid Kingdom failed to restore its control of the northwest of India and had to sign an agreement with the Indian king to abandon its efforts
in 305 B.C.1 Around the
middle of the 3rd century, Diodotus, the Greek governor of the satrapy of Bactria, declared his independence from the Seleucid Kingdom. Right after this, the Parthians (later referred to by Zhang Qian as “Anxi”) revolted in their turn and established their own kingdom. The dynasty of the Seleucids could not protect its eastern territories and gradually accepted this fact. Thus, the core of the empire shifted to the territories between the Euphrates and the eastern coast of the Mediterranean where Syria became the center of the realm. During the 2nd century B.C. some Bactrian kings extended their sway across the Hindu Kush Mountains and into the northwest of India. Half a century later, the Greeks in Bactria were forced to retreat from the Oxus river (Amu Daria) all the way to India under the powerful pressures of the Parthians2 and the nomads from the north. When Zhang Qian arrived in Batria in c. 129-128 B.C., the area had been conquered by the Dayuezhi. Zhang Qian called Bactria of his time Daxia (Ta-hia, 大夏). The above mentioned developments concern the political situation in Western Asia, Central Asia, and India before Zhang Qian’s arrival in Bactria. Although the territories directly controlled by the Greeks had been greatly reduced in size, the influence of Hellenistic Culture still went much wider and deeper. Wherever the Greeks came in their conquests, they founded cities or colonies after the Greek manner. It has been estimated that there must have been more than 300 cities and settlements founded in Asia by Alexander and his successors. We now know 275 names of these cities and colonies. Most of them (some 160) were located in the areas along the eastern coast of and lower reaches of the Euphrates as well as in
1
2
the Mediterranean, the others were in the middle
areas east of that river. There were 19 Greek cities in Bactria (of which
so-called Dayuezhi. But until the fourth year of Qianyuan of the Han emperor Wendi (汉文帝, 176 B.C.) the Xiongnu had not conquered and driven out the Dayuezhi and submitted Loulan, Wusun, Hujie, and 26 other neighboring countries. Therefore, before 176 B.C. the Greeks of Bactria were not in a position to attack the Xiongnu. Seleucus I gave up his dominion in the northwest of India in exchange for the right of intermarrying and the ‘gift’ of five hundred elephants from the Indian king Sandrocottus (Candragupta); see Strabo, Geography, 15. 2. 9. Parthia seized a part of Bactria during the reigns of Eucratides (c. 175-145 B. C.) and his successors; see Strabo, Geography, 11.9.2; 11.11.2. 6
eight were foundations of Alexander the Great1) and 27 in India.2 The existence of Hellenistic cities in Bactria was confirmed by the discovery of the site of Ai Khanum in Afghanistan in the 1960s.3 These cities and settlements, built in the central regions or along the more important traffic routes or next to military fortresses, were an important element in the organization of Greco-Macedonian rule. It was common for these cities to have Greek-style temples, gymnasiums, and theatres. Most of the city residents were also Greeks. Not surprisingly then, the cities enjoyed an atmosphere of Greek culture. The Greek language, Greek coins, Greek gods, Greek plays, and generally Greek conventions and customs must have made the Greeks in these far-away lands feel as if they were at home. On the other hand, in relation to the vast extension of land, these cities must have been like dots on the map or oases in a desert. The Greeks here strove to maintain the purity and unity of their culture and even tried to influence the local peoples around them, but at the same time had to deal with the influences that the eastern cultures exerted on themselves, living as they did in a ‘boundless sea’ of indigenous and local cultures. Hellenistic culture or Hellenistic civilization here gradually acquired the character of a mixture of Greek and eastern elements. In Bactria and its neighboring areas, which Zhang Qian visited or heard about during his trip to the West, the changes in culture were especially remarkable. According to Strabo, the way of life and the customs of the inhabitants of Bactria and Sogdiana in the time of Alexander the Great were almost the same as those of the nomads.4 But during the long period of Greek control of the Bactrian kingdom so many cities and towns were built that the country came to be known as ‘the kingdom of a thousand cities’.5 Although the rulers of Parthia had broken away from the Seleucid Kingdom, they considered adoption or imitation of Greek culture an honor. They took over the calendar of the Seleucids, issued coins in
1 2 3
4
5
Strabo, Geography, 11. 11. 4. M. Cary, A History of the Greek World (London: Methuen & Co. 1959) 244-5. On the Hellenistic features of the site, Paul Bernard, the leader of the DAFA, has published three papers to describe the details of the Greek city: ‘An Ancient Greek city in Central Asia’, Scientific American. 246 (Jan. 1982) 148-159; ‘Ai Khanum on the Oxus: A Hellenistic City in Central Asia’, Proceedings of the British Academy 53 (1967) 71-95; ‘The Greek kingdoms of Central Asia’, in The History of Civilizations of Central Asia II. The Development of Sedentary and Nomadic Civilizations, ed. Janos Harmatta (Unesco 1994) 117-23. There is also some useful information on the site in chapter 3 of A.H. Dani & P. Bernard (eds.) Alexander and his successors in Central Asia. The formal excavation was greatly disturbed by the wars since 1979, but some Hellenistic works of art, such as the statues of Heracles and Athena, have been unearthed; see Frank L. Holt, Into the Land of Bones: Alexander the Great in Afghanistan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005) 162-3; Yang Juping, ‘The site of Ai Khanum and the interactions of the ancient civilizations in East and West’, The Western Regions Studies 6 (2007) 96-105. For instance, although the Bactrians were a little civilized, those among them who had grown weak and helpless because of old age or sickness were simply thrown out alive as prey to dogs that were kept expressly for this purpose. Thus, while the land outside the walls of the metropolis of the Bactrians looked clean, most of the land inside the walls was full of human bones. When Alexander came here, he made an end to the custom. Strabo’s record comes from Onesicritus, a companion of Alexander and author of an Alexander history. Strabo thought that Onesicritus had not reported the best traits of the Bactrians but only their bad customs: Strabo, Geography, 11. 11. 3. According to Strabo, whose information comes from the Parthica of Artemidorus, Eucratides, king of the Bactrians, at any rate ruled over a thousand cities: Strabo, Geography, 15. 1.3. 7
Greek style, commissioned statues of Greek gods, had Greek plays performed 1, and even built a gymnasium in their palace.2 To be sure, the Greeks in India were more influenced by the indigenous culture than the Bactrian Greeks were by theirs. Some of these Indo-Greeks converted to Buddhism (like the famous King Menander, i.e. Milinda). 3 Some Indo-Greek kings issued coins with Indian and Greek scripts, while maintaining the basic features and style of Greek coins. Thus, the portrait head of the king and a Greek legend (mentioning the name and an honorary title of the king) appear on the obverse, while Greek divine figures are seen on the reverse. But there are also coins with Indian legends in kharosthi script and Indian imagery. It was probably also because of the long-lasting influence of Hellenistic artistic styles from Bactria and northwestern India that in the 1st and 2nd centuries A.D. Buddhist Gandhara art would develop in this region. This was the general political and cultural constellation when in the late 2nd century B.C. Zhang Qian arrived in these eastern fringes of the Hellenistic World, traveling to Central Asia, or, more exactly, to the former territory of the Greek kingdom of Bactria around the rivers Oxus and Jaxartes. What did he see and hear over there?
3.
The Travels of Zhang Qian on his diplomatic missions to the Western Regions and the spread of
information about Hellenistic culture into China According to the Collective Biographies of Dayuan in the Records of the Grand Scribe
(《史记·大宛列传》), Zhang Qian
had been sent twice by the emperor of the Han Dynasty, Wudi, to the Western Regions on a diplomatic mission. The first time was in the years 139 (or 138) to 126 B.C. In this journey he had passed through four regions: Dayuan (大宛), Kangju (康居), Dayuezhi, and Daxia except for the Xiongnu, whilst he received some hearsay information about five other large countries: Wusun (乌孙), Yancai (奄蔡), Anxi (i.e. Parthia, 安息), Tiaozhi (条支), and Shendu (i.e. India, 身毒). His second journey took place at some time in the years 119-115 B.C. He himself arrived at Wusun and from there sent his vice-envoys to ‘Dayuan, Kangju, Dayuezhi, Daxia, Anxi, Yutian (于寘), Hanshen (扜罙), as well as other neighboring countries.’ The travels of Zhang Qian marked the opening of the whole Silk Road. As a result, information about the Western Regions for the first time was brought to Central China. Hardly had Zhang Qian come back from his first travel when he reported to the emperor Wudi the details of what he had seen and heard in the Western Regions. We can see from 1
2
3
Plutarch tells us (Plut. Crassus, 33) that, when the head of the Roman general Crassus, killed in the battle of Carrhae in 53 B.C., was brought to the palace of the Parthian king, the Bacchae of Euripides was being performed. Plutarch also mentions a guest present at court, Artavasdes, the king of Armenia, who not only could enjoy Greek poems and plays in the same way as the master of the banquet, Hyrodes or Orodes, the Parthian king, but also could himself write tragedies, orations and history in Greek. This shows clearly the wide spread of the Greek language and the infiltration of Hellenistic culture. These elements of Hellenistic culture in Parthia are also commented on by R.L. Fox, Alexander the Great (London: Futura Publications, 1975) 492-3；cf. Wiesehofer, Ancient Persia. From 550 BC to 650 AD, 124-9. See The Questions of King Milinda (The Milinda Panha), Chinese translation: The Sutra of the Buddhist Sage Nāgasena (大正新修大 藏经)第43卷论集部：《那先比丘经下); cf. Plutarch, Moralia, 821D. 8
the records of the historian Sima Qian, that Zhang Qian’s reports
about the various places he visited in the Western
Regions were consistent, only differing in detail, due, probably, to the varying degree of his knowledge about these areas. These reports in the work of Sima Qian are actually first-hand material that Zhang Qian brought back to China. Based on his experience in the lands the Greeks had ruled and influenced for so long, they are also the first official reports about the countries of the Western Regions that Central China had ever received up to that time. Therefore, these reports should be analyzed in detail so that we can see what kind of information they may provide and especially what they can tell us about those elements of Hellenistic culture that were accepted and preserved by the local peoples in the various regions conquered by the Greco-Macedonians. In the Collective Biographies of Dayuan Sima Qian gives us relatively detailed information about the agricultural and settled societies, but not about four ‘moving nations’ (“行国”), that is the Wusun, Kangju, Yancai, and Dayuezhi. His records contain information on the location (distance, neighboring countries), the population, the form of government, on cities and towns,
products, commerce and trade, etc.
As to the location of these ‘moving nations’, according to Sima Qian’s records the Kangju, Wusun and Yancai were all nomads who moved around in the areas from the Caspian Sea and the Aral Sea in the west to Tishan and the Altai Mountains in the east, and even far beyond the limits of control exerted by the Greek kingdom of Bactria. The Dayuezhi originally lived in the lands between Dunhuang (敦煌) and the Qilian Mountains, but later settled down to the north of the Amu Darja and subjugated Daxia. Initially, the Dayuezhi occupied only a part of Bactria and were not deeply influenced by the local Hellenistic culture because they still preserved their nomadic traditions. It was appropriate that Sima Qian spoke of ‘moving nations’ at that time. Dayuan is generally identified with Ferghana and some neighboring areas belonging to today’s Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kirghisistan. This land, part of Sogdiana in the time of Alexander the Great, was included into the territory of the Greek kingdom of Bactria1, or was at least strongly influenced by it. Anxi (Parthia) underwent even more Hellenistic influences and has been regarded as a typical ‘Philhellenic Empire’ by Arnold Toynbee.2 Indeed, many Parthian kings called themselves ‘lovers of Greeks’ or of ‘things Greek’ (FILELLHNOS) on their coins. Daxia too, and Tiaozhi,
and a part of Shendu (the northwest of India) had all belonged to the empire of Alexander. When
Zhang Qian arrived in Central Asia, Tiaozhi
(the kingdom of the Seleucids) still existed. However, Daxia, that is the
Greek kingdom of Bactria, had just been conquered and the rest of the Bactrian Greeks had retreated into India. All things 1
2
According to Strabo (Geography, 11.11.2), the Greeks of Bactria once ‘held Sogdiana, situated north of Bactriana towards the east between the Oxus River, which forms the boundary between the Bactrians and the Sogdians, and the Jaxartes River’. Such a location should have included the Basin of Ferghana. A. Toynbee regarded Parthia as a protector and sponsor of Greek culture: see A. Toynbee, Hellenism (Oxford University Press 1959) 183. 9
considered, it is quite plausible that Zhang Qian’s impressions of these areas do contain some pieces of information on Hellenistic culture. In agricultural production these regions not only produced grain but had a reputation for excellent wine as well. The vine had not originated in Greece. According to the latest research, the art of vine-growing and wine-making had arisen in the eastern parts of modern Turkey in the period from 8500 to 4000 B.C. and from there had spread eastward and westward.1 Because of their favorable geographical position near Anatolia, the inhabitants of Greece must have adopted viniculture and wine-making already in the Early Minoan period. By the time of Homer viniculture and wine-making had become an important part of Greek economic and cultural life. Not without reason, Dionysus, the god of wine, was one of the great gods in Greek cult and mythology. We may assume, therefore, that the Greek colonists introduced the grapevine or extended its cultivation in the areas under their control, bringing advanced methods of wine-making with them. They first introduced their methods of viniculture to Susiana and Babylon. According to Strabo, ‘they did not trench, but only thrust into the ground iron-pointed stakes, then pulled them out and replaced them at once with the plants.’2 Strabo also reports that the soil of Aria and Margiana, both bordering on Bactria, was well suited to the vine, and that the land of Aria especially was ‘exceedingly productive of wine, which can be kept good for three generations in vessels not smeared with pitch.’3 Related evidence can be found in the Chinese historical records. According to the Collective Biographies of Dayuan, wine was one of the special products of Anxi, Dayuan and other areas. Wine-making here was so productive that rich people even stored wine in quantities of more than ten thousand Dan (Dan, 石) that could be kept good for several decades. From this we may infer that already before Zhang Qian arrived in the Western Regions viniculture and wine-making there had become a profitable enterprise for many local people. This correspondence of western and eastern sources is not a coincidence, but a reflection of the history of viniculture in these regions. After Zhang Qian’s travels to the Western Regions, viniculture was introduced in Central China by way of the Silk Road.4 The pronunciation of the Chinese word
putao (‘grape’, 葡萄) is close to the Greek pronunciation of βότρυς (botrus), which means a ‘bunch of grapes’ and
in the plural ‘grapes’. Chinese putao might even be Greek βότρυς in its Chinese transliteration.5 1
2 3 4
5
William Cocke, ‘First Wine? Archaeologist Traces Drink to Stone Age’, National Geographic News, July 21, 2004; http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/07/0721_040721_ancientwine.html Strabo, Geography, 15. 3.11. Strabo, Geography, 11.10.1-2. In the words of Sima Qian in the Collective Biographies of Dayuan : ‘The envoys of the Han emperors brought the seeds of the grapevine and the purple medic back to Central China. So the emperor Wudi (Tianzi, the Son of Heaven, 天子) began to plant them in lands of great fertility. The number of Heavenly Horses (天马) rose steadily and many foreign envoys came to the capital, so that the grapevine and the purple medic were planted over large areas near the palaces and hotels.’ See H.G. Liddell and R. Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, with a revised supplement (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), s.v. βότρυς; E. Chavannes, The Travelers of China, translated by Feng Chengjun, included in the Translations of papers of history and geography of the Western Regions and the South Seas, Vol. II (Beijing: Commercial Press, 1995), Chapter 8, p. 7. According to P. Pelliot this 10
Another main feature of the areas Zhang Qian visited was their large population and numerous cities. There were more than seventy walled cities in Dayuan, big and small, and an aggregate population of several hundreds of thousands of people. Anxi too had walled cities and towns as Dayuan had. The number of cities and towns in that country reached several hundred and its territory stretched over thousands of li (里), making Anxi the largest of the Western Regions. In Daxia likewise, there were walled cities as in Dayuan. There was no great king or supreme chief, but the cities and towns had their own lords or chiefs. The population of Daxia was approximately more than one million. Could there have been any connection between these numerous cities and towns and the city-building initiated in this region by Alexander the Great? The answer must be affirmative. As pointed out already, wherever Greeks settled, they built cities similar to those in their homeland. For the Greeks the city was the essence of a state. It was not just a place to live in, but it was the center of their activities in politics, culture, education and religion. Therefore, the Greeks had a special feeling for city life and saw in the city their spiritual home. In the remote east, at a distance of about 3000 miles from their homeland, they especially felt the need to build cities and towns like those at home, in order both to preserve their cultural traditions and to better rule over the indigenous populations. The size of the theater with space for 5,000 spectators that has been discovered at the site of Ai Khanum1 tells us that Geeks were certainly the main body of the inhabitants, and it suggests that their numbers were much larger than in other Greek cities in the region. Hellenized Bactrians and Sogdians should probably be included in their number.2 It is the biggest Greek theater that has been unearthed in the east until now.3 Thus it comes as no surprise that Zhang Qian discovered so many cities and towns in these areas. His reports seem to confirm the well-known Greek passion for city-founding. Although the Greeks here were the ruling elite, they were immigrants nevertheless and a minority in comparison with the local population of several hundred thousand, or even more than a million. It is difficult to imagine that a relatively small number of Greek soldiers4, left behind by Alexander the Great, could have produced such a large population in two hundred years. We cannot assume that all cities and towns were of a Greek
character, and certainly not
that all of these hundreds of thousands of people lived in cities and towns. Around a city or a town there must have been an explanation had been put forward by Ritter and confirmed by Kingsmill and Hirth. But he himself was doubtful of it. See the above-mentioned Translations of papers of history and geography of the Western Regions and the South Seas, Vol. I(Chapter 5)82-83. The American scholar B. Laufer did not agree to it either; see B. Laufer, Sino—Iranica: Chinese contributions to the history of civilization in ancient Iran, with special reference to the history of cultivated plants and products( Chicago, 1919)225-7. But his some conclusions may be outdated. 1 P. Bernard, ‘An Ancient Greek City in Central Asia’, Scientific American 246 (Jan. 1982) 148-159. 2 Plutarch wrote in On the Fortune or the Virtue of Alexander: ‘Yet when Alexander was taming Asia, Homer became widely read, and the children of the Persians, the Susianians and the Gedrosians sang the tragedies of Euripides and Sophocles.’ (Plutarch, Moralia, 328D). It appears that the statement of Plutarch was not pure fantasy. 3 F. L. Holt, Into the Land of Bones: Alexander the Great in Afghanistan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005) 156. 4 When Alexander left for India he garrisoned 13 500 soldiers there (Arian, 4. 22). Whether the number included the Greeks who had been settled in the cities and towns and the Macedonians who were too old, too weak, or too heavily injured to fight in battle, we cannot know. But there were at least 23 000 Greek and Macedonian soldiers in the colonies of the eastern satrapies after the death of Alexander in 323 B.C., see F. L. Holt, Alexander the Great and Bactria, 81, 88. 11
agricultural population and most laborers in the fields must have been natives. But the existence of Greek cities and towns is an historical fact, and the legend of a country of ‘one thousand cities’ evidently was not mere exaggeration. If the reports of Zhang Qian testify indirectly to the existence of numerous Greek cities and towns in the eastern Hellenistic countries, the site of Ai Khanum directly proves the existence of cities and towns in the Greek manner. The political organization of these countries and cities was based on kingship, as was the case in the Hellenistic states generally, but it seems that the aristocrats - local principals and chiefs - could play an important role at key moments. A series of events in Dayuan might illustrate this. After a refusal to contribute the precious horses (Hanxuema, 汗血马) to the Han emperor, the aristocrats had the Chinese envoys attacked and killed, and when their capital was besieged by a Chinese army they murdered their own king Wugua (毋寡)1, apparently according to a well-prepared plan, after which they collectively negotiated for peace with the Chinese imperial government. Clearly, these aristocrats could plot together and cooperate when faced with a common danger, and they were quite capable of murdering their king. Does this mean that there was a kind of institution in Dayuan similar to the royal council at the courts of the main Hellenistic kingdoms? If so, did the local aristocrats man such a council? Since there was no great king in Daxia and the cities and towns had their own local lords at the time when Zhang Qian arrived there, can we infer that the Greek dynasty of Bactria on their withdrawal to India had left the country in the hands of those small chiefs of cities and districts? In his reports on Anxi and Daxia, Zhang Qian referred to the existence of marketplaces in the two countries, and to the shrewdness of the local people in trade. For example, he mentions that the capital city
of Bactria, Lanshi(蓝市), had a
marketplace for the trade in various products. Moreover, he told the emperor Wudi that he had seen in Daxia bamboo sticks from Qiong (邛) and cloth (Bu, 布, or silk,) from Shu (蜀) in the southwest of China. This implies that at the time there was a network of trade centered on Bactria and linking western, southern, and eastern Asia. Since a great many Greek or Greek-styled coins of this period have been unearthed, this clearly indicates that trade based on the use of coinage prevailed in the Hellenistic kingdoms and adjacent areas.2
Zhang Qian also mentioned these coins in his reports because the coins he
saw were very different from the Chinese ones which were round and had a square hole in the middle. In his report on Anxi, Zhang Qian described the coins of that country as follows: ‘The coin was made of silver with the bust or face of the reigning 1
2
The name of Wugua seems to be the transliteration of the title ΜΕΓΑΣ （Megas）for kings that appears in the legends of Hellenistic coins. In the Kushan period a king had no name, only the title ΣΩΤΗΡ ΜΕΓΑΣ（Soter Megas）on his coins. Plausibly, Megas could be regarded as the name of the king. But whether Wugua in the Records of the Grand Scribe was just a transliteration of Megas, cannot be known for certain. This suggestion was made by Professor Zhang Xushan of Qinghua University, whom I wish to thank here. Since the first coin of a Greek king of Bactria, Eucratides (BAΣIΛEΩΣ MEΓAΛOY EYKPATIΔOY), was discovered, numerous Greek coins have been unearthed in this area. The largest hoard has been found in the tiny village of Nir Zakah in Afghanistan. An estimated 550 000 coins have made their way to Japan, Europe, and America. This single hoard is almost six times larger than the total of all ancient hoards recorded throughout the territories of Greece and Macedonia, see F.L. Holt, Into the Land of the Bones: Alexander the Great in Afghanistan, 125-148. 12
king on the obverse. When the king died, the coin had to be changed immediately, and the bust or face of the new king would appear on the new coin.’ The similarities between these coins and those of the Hellenistic kingdoms are obvious: first, the coins were made of silver; secondly, they bore portrait heads; thirdly, the coins were changed as soon as the king had died, and the portrait head had to be replaced by that of the new king. That coins bore the portrait of a king, was normal in the Hellenistic Age. In the beginning of his expedition Alexander issued a series of bronze coins with his own portrait at Memphis in Egypt.1 After the conquest of India he issued a type of big royal medallions with his figure on horseback attacking the Indian king Porus on his elephant.2 After the death of Alexander, Ptolemy I also issued coins with the portrait head of Alexander.3 But it was Lysimachus (323－281 B.C.), one of Alexander’s generals, who created the standard coin-portrait of Alexander in 297 B.C.4 Other successors of Alexander followed his example. When they set themselves up as kings, most of them issued their own coins with their portrait heads symbolizing their kingship. These coins circulated not only in the areas under Greek control but also in neighboring countries and areas under local rulers such as Parthia (Anxi), where the monarchs continuously imitated this coinage. The Hellenistic coins in Asia discovered until now can be divided according to their metal (gold, silver, bronze or copper, iron and lead) or according to their basic denominations: stater, drachm, tetradrachm and obol. In Parthia, however, the coins discovered thus far are almost all made of silver, with only a few gold issues that seem to have been meant as gifts for commemoration. Parthian silver coins have the portrait heads of the kings on the obverse, and on the reverse generally images of an archer kneeling down with a bow
(some scholars see in the archer Arsaces, the founder of the Parthian
dynasty5), or images of Greek gods such as Tyche, Nike, Demeter, Heracles and so on. The legends are usually in Greek. They include the name of the founding king, ARSAKOU, further ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΜΕΓΑΛΟΥ (Great King), BASILEWN
BASILEWS
(King of Kings), DIKAIOΥ (Just), FILELLHNOS (Lover of Greeks or of things Greek), etc.6 The name of
the reigning king, however, is never mentioned on these coins, which makes it hard for us to identify the kings concerned. What Zhang Qian brought back as information about the currency of Anxi, as we saw above, was a simple description, in a few words, of its basic features, but the truthfulness of his observations can clearly be proven by numismatic and
1 2
3
4
5 6
I. Carradice & M. Prince, Coinage in the Greek World (London : B.A.Seaby, 1988) 109. Frank L. Holt, Alexander the Great and the Mystery of the elephant Medallions (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003) Plate 2-14. I. Carradice & M. Prince, Coinage in the Greek World, p. 116; M. Bieber, ‘The portraits of Alexander’, Greece and Rome 2nd ser. 12 (1965) 185, plate VI, fig. 12. I. Carradice & M. Prince, Coinage in the Greek World, p. 120; M. Bieber, ‘The portraits of Alexander’, Greece and Rome 2nd ser. 12 (1965) 186, plate VII, fig.13 Wiesehofer, Ancient Persia. From 550 BC to 650 AD, p. 128. The Greek legends on coins of Parthia can be found on http://www.parthia.com/parthia_inscriptions.htm#Greek; http://www.parthia.com/scripts/url.asp. 13
archeological research. The metal currency he saw certainly consisted of coins in Greek style1, because that was the only currency used in these regions at the time. The later Kushan kingdom, founded by a chief of the Dayuezhi people, also adopted that style of coinage. The Biographies of the Western Region in Han shu (《汉书·西域传》) referred to similar coins in the reports on
Jibin (罽宾), Wuyishanli (乌弋山离), Anxi and Dayuezhi. Apparently, Greek or Greek-looking coins
widely circulated and were in use for quite a long time. We may say that Zhang Qian’s description of the coins of Anxi was the most accurate piece of information about Hellenistic Culture that he brought back to Central China. Another, very important but rarely noted item in Zhang Qian’s report on Anxi that also directly pertained to Hellenistic culture, is his information on writing and writing material among the people of Anxi. He tells us that in Anxi people wrote horizontally on sheets of leather. Leather for this purpose had been used in pharaonic Egypt as early as the fourth dynasty (ca. 2750 B.C.); in a later period some of the Books of the Dead that were buried in the tombs had been made of leather.2 Herodotus provides the information that the Ionians had formerly used skins of sheep and goats as their ‘paper’, due to lack of papyrus, and that even in his day there were many ‘barbarians’ who wrote on these skins.3 Clearly, the use of leather as writing material had been known for some time before Zhang Qian made his observations concerning Anxi. The word ‘parchment’ (Latin, pergamena) is derived from the name of the Hellenistic kingdom of Pergamum, whose king Eumenes II (197-160/59 B.C.) was said to have invented ‘parchment’ in order to break an Egyptian embargo on papyrus.4 It is highly probable that the librarians at Pergamum only improved upon known processes of parchment-making and created a kind of parchment that was clean, white, and could be used on both sides. Neighboring as it did on the Seleucid kingdom, which in its turn bordered on Pergamum in Asia Minor, Anxi probably became acquainted with parchment relatively early. In the 1960s at the site of Ai Khanum the French archeologists discovered the remains of a sheet of parchment on which a Greek poem was written.5 At another place in Bactria a Greek parchment containing a tax receipt was discovered.6 This makes it certain that indeed parchment was known in Daxia, when Zhang Qian stayed there. Most probably, Zhang Qian saw with his own eyes such parchment as well as the Greek script written on it horizontally from left to right. This must have caught his attention, because in his time the Chinese still used bamboo slips for writing and wrote vertically from the top down.
1
2 3 4 5
6
Numerous Greek or Greek-styled coins have been collected by museums and by private persons in various countries. Numismatics and historians are able to a large extent to establish the dynastic lineages of various kingdoms by studying their coins. The imagery and other information conferred by these coins can be accessed on http://parthia.com/parthia_coins.htm; http://www.grifterrec.com/coins/coins.html. Meir Bar-Ilan, PARCHMENT, http://faculty.biu.ac.il/-barilan/parchment.htm Herodotus, 5. 58. Pliny, Natural History, 13.21. Wiesehofer, Ancient Persia. From 550 B.C. to 650 A.D., p. 114; F.L. Holt, Into the Land of Bones: Alexander the Great in Afghanistan, p. 160. F. L. Holt, Thundering Zeus: The Making of Hellenistic Bactria (Berkley: University of California Press, 1999) 176. 14
Moreover, the language used in writing on parchment was almost certainly Greek because that was the common language in the Hellenistic world and well-known even by the upper class in Parthia. Sima Qian tells us in his Collective Biographies of Dayuan that ‘from Dayuan westward to Anxi, the languages and dialects of the countries are different but the customs are similar, and different peoples can understand each other’s languages and dialects.’ Besides Iranian, such a language or dialect that was commonly understood must have been ‘Common Greek’ (κοινή，the ‘common tongue’).1 It is practically certain that Zhang Qian heard that language. Otherwise, how could he have transliterated βότρυς（botrus）into Chinese putao (“蒲陶”)? Evidently, when Zhang Qian traveled from Central China to the western Regions, he came to a totally different world. What he saw and heard there does contain some information about Hellenistic culture. Thus, Zhang Qian not only was the first person that had been sent on a diplomatic mission to the Western Regions and so visited the world outside China, but also the first to bring back some information about Hellenistic culture. His exploration of the Western Regions from the east and the conquests of Alexander the Great from the west for the first time made possible some cultural and economic exchanges among the major civilizations across Eurasia. Hence, Chinese silk, lacquers, iron wares (complex wares of steel and iron, including the method of steel-making), leather wares, even methods of almond and peach cultivation, were all brought to the Western Regions and from there some of these items soon reached Rome.2 Likewise, various special products - exotic animals and plants, musicians and dancers, even new religions - were introduced to China from the West. Resulting from a fusion of Buddhist spirit and Greek sculptural tradition, the Indian art of Gandhara stands out as the most remarkable testimony to the influence of Hellenistic culture in the east. This art is also the only identifiable item of Hellenistic culture that reached Central China by way of the Silk Road in the period after Zhang Qian’s mission.
To sum up, the opening of the Silk Road should not be attributed only to the ambition of the Han emperor Wudi to control the Western Regions and to the diplomatic mission of Zhang Qian, but also to the conquests of Alexander the Great and the resulting formation of the Hellenistic world. It was explorations and conquests from both China and Greece that had the opening of the Silk Road as an unexpected effect An ancient Chinese poet once said: ‘if a person had stick a bunch of
1
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See W.W. Tarn, ‘Notes on Hellenism in Bactria and India’, Journal of Hellenic Studies 22 (1902) 278. Tarn recognized the prevalence of Iranian but assumed that also Greek was used in the cities, although he had no evidence to support that assumption. Since then, however, numerous examples of the use of Greek in the form of coins, inscriptions, pieces of parchment and papyri have been discovered in the region. See Sima Qian, Collective Biographies of Dayuan in the Records of the Grand Scribe; Pliny, Natural History, 34. 145. Remains of silk from China have been discovered at the site of Palmyra; see A. E. Dien, Palmyra as a Caravan City, http://www.silk-road.com/newsletter/2004vol2num1/Palmyra.htm; also Wiesehofer, Ancient Persia. From 550 BC to 650 AD, p. 15
willow branches into the soil without any expectation, he will be surprised years later by seeing a forest over there’ This is true also for the opening of the Silk Road which linked East and West for over thousand years and had an long influence that both Alexander the Great and Zhang Qian could not have expected.
(This paper is one of the publications for the Project from the National Foundation for the Social Science in China: ‘Hellenistic Civilization and the Interaction of Ancient civilizations between East and West’, (2005) No. 05BSS003 and had been submitted to the Japan-Korea-China the Symposium 2007, at Meiji University in Japan. I am grateful to Dr. H. Singor of Leiden University for his modification for this English version)
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Founding of the Western Consortium for Hellenic Studies: An Intellectual Home for Hellenic Studies West of the Rockies By Dr. Evdoxios Doxiadis
At Hellenic fundraiser in Seattle: (left) Dr. Andromache Karanika, Associate Professor of Classics at the University of California, Irvine; Maria Hamilton, Costa Dedegikas; Stavroula Dedegikas; Dr. Eirini Kotsovili; Beverley Gerolymatos; Colleen Pescott
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n November 10, 2012, twelve professors from six Western North American Universities met at the University of Washington in Seattle in order to establish the Western Consortium for Hellenic Studies. As the agreed mission statement declares, the Western Consortium for Hellenic Studies will bring together scholars and students from various disciplines whose research and teaching deals with any aspect of the Greek world. This includes scholars and students in Humanities, Social Sciences, Fine Arts, Liberal Arts, International Studies, and related disciplines. The consortium will sponsor lectures, workshops, and cultural events, and will encourage community engagement. The new Consortium will help reduce the costs of bringing distinguished speakers on Hellenic matters to the West Coast as it will allow several institutions to share the travel expenses, and will also broaden the pool of scholarship to the benefit of students and in particular graduate students. It was further agreed that the consortium would sponsor a biennial academic workshop where professors and graduate students will be able to present their research and Dr. Katerina Lagos from the California State University at
Sacramento offered to host the first workshop in 2014. Finally the Consortium will foster a sense of academic community vitally important to scholars who do not have the benefit of an established center or program in Hellenic studies. Simon Fraser University was represented by the director of the Stavros Niarchos Center for Hellenic Studies Dr. AndrĂŠ Gerolymatos, as well as by Dr. Evdoxios Doxiadis and Dr. Eirini Kotsovili. The remaining participants were Dr. Nektaria Klapaki (University of Washington), Dr. Thomas Gallant (University of California, San Diego), Dr. Andromache Karanika (University of California, Irvine), Dr. Katerina Lagos (California State University, Sacramento), Dr. Karen Emmerich (University of Oregon), Dr. Roland Moore (Prevention Research Center), Dr. Devin Naar (University of Washington), Dr. Tasos Lagos (University of Washington), and Dr. Theodore Kaltsounis (University of Washington). Finally the Stavros Niarchos Foundation New Media Lab at Simon Fraser University undertook to develop and run the website of the Consortium and an online forum to facilitate interactions and the dissemination of information.
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Updates From China
Wishing Our Partners in China Happy 2013! Xin Nian Hao! 新年好！ Nankai University (Tian Jin) Sun Yat-sen University (Guang Zhou) Beijing Foreign Language University (Beijing) Peking University (Beijing) Tsinghua University (Beijing) Fudan University (Shang Hai) Shanghai International Study University (Shang Hai) Beijing Language and Culture University (Beijing) People University (Beijing) Shanghai Normal University (Shang Hai) North East Normal University (Chang Chun) Shandong University (Shan Dong)
Xi’an Foreign Language University (Xi’an) Sichuan University (Cheng Du) Southeast China University (Chong Qing) Zhengzhou University (Zheng Zhou) Capital Normal University (Beijing) Wuhan University (Wu Han) Yantai University (Yan Tai) Xinjiang University of Finance & Economics (Xin Jiang) Dalian Nationalities University (Da Lian) Embassy of China (Athens) Embassy of the Hellenic Republic (Beijing)
Updates From Our China Partners By Brian Olsen
Brian Olsen in China
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NF Hellenic Studies Centre at SFU activities in China encompassed a wide spectrum of engagement this year, and some of the most interesting and important endeavours can be divided into five categories. (Continued on page 9)
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1.International Symposium on Ancient World History held at Nankai University in June 2012 Long-time partner, Nankai University, invited the Centre to participate at the symposium, and Brian Olsen attended from June 16 – 18. Among the most exciting events were China’s first round tables on Byzantine History, which included paper presentations and discussions with Chinese and Western scholars. Both round tables were chaired by good friends of our Centre – one by Head of the History College of Nankai University and former Dean, Prof. Chen Zhiqiang, and the other chaired by Northeast Normal University’s Prof. Xu Jialing.
First Greek Language Textbook Published in China
2.China partners in the Hellenic Studies Certificate Program Announcement of this program has caused considerable excitement, especially with our key partners at Nankai University and Sun Yat-sen University. They hope to be both participants in this program, and hubs for its use throughout China. We are now working with them towards establishing dual recognition of this certificate at their universities and at SFU. 3.Internship The Centre was lucky enough to have Marios Stangonis of the University of Leeds visit as an intern. Marios was a graduate student in the Chinese and Business MA Programme there, and proved to be an excellent asset to the Centre. He participated in a variety of outreach and promotion activities, and in research tasks. 4.Chinese scholars at the Centre Our first scholar, Jiang Huangyi (Kyriakos) a graduate of Beijing Foreign Studies University, is currently studying at SFU with the goal of achieving an MA in Modern Greek History. He will be joined next year by Dr. Zheng Wei of Nankai University, who will spend her time at SFU deepening her current research on the early Byzantine period.
SNF’s Media Lab Researcher Sally Huang Introduces the New Textbook in China
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ally Huang translated the English version of Modern Greek language textbook into Chinese, which is published by Nankai Press. This is the first Modern Greek language textbook in Chinese published in China. Currently, Nankai University and Beijing Language and Culture University are using it as the textbook for their Modern Greek language courses.
5.Chinese participation in the Debt, Sovereignty, and Civil Society Conference A number of scholars from Shanghai Normal University, Renmin University, Southeast University of China, and Wuhan University (some of our partner universities) watched the webcast of the roundtable portion of the conference. Through the webcast, they were able to post questions that were answered by the expert panel.
Mrs. Elena Avramidou, the Education and Cultural Attaché from the Greek Embassy in Beijing. She is the guest lecturer of this class.
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Visiting Professor from China By Dr. André Gerolymatos
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he SNF Centre for Hellenic Studies is moving closer to establishing closer links with Chinese universities. In 2013, Dr. Zheng Wei, a Byzantine scholar will join the SNF Centre for Hellenic Studies as a visiting professor. Her tenure at the Centre will help foster closer ties between Nankai and SFU. Dr. Wei will work on her research in Byzantium Studies but she will also be able to assist the Centre in developing several joint programs with Nankai University in Greek Studies.
Area of Research
M Visiting Professor Zheng Wei
y research interests currently focus on the culture transformation of the early Byzantine Empire (4th -6th centuries). Culture is a generalized conception, which includes not only religon, art, literature and thoughts but also government, politics and economy. So the culture transformation of the early Byzantine Empire means how these aspects transformed from their classical characters to the Byzantine characters. Concretely speaking, I study the building of imperial absolutism and of administrative centralization, the reformation of military, the reconstruction of the economic system and institution, the relationship between Church and State, the changes of the social life and customs, of the contents and methods of art, of the the subjects’ view on the world. Furtherly, I discuss how the Byzanine culture inherited and developed the ancient civilizaiton, how it played a role in the Renaissance, and how it influenced the rest of the history of the Empire and its neighbours in a wider region and a longer time. For the culture transformation of the early Byzantine Empire, Roman political concepts and Greek culture were the traditional elements, while the Christian faith and the eastern culture were the new ones. I’d like to discuss how these four elements were mutually integrated and how they contributed to the Byzantine culture. I’m also interested in the Byzantine agriculture in 7th -9th centuries, duing which the Byzantine agricultural economy undertook great changes. Villages and agriculture had been a more and more important economic and social factor. In three published articles, I discuss the legal rights of the free inhabitants of the Byzantine village-community, the reasons why the villages and farmers of Byzantine Empire grew rapidly during 7th to 9th centuries and the features of Byzantine villages by studying the Rural Code.
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Arts and Letters ARTS AND LETTERS COMMITTEE The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Centre for Hellenic Studies at SFU
Members of the Arts and Letters Committee (From left to right): Larissa Horne, Anna Zibarras, Jan Pierce, Beverley Gerolymatos, Nicole Vittoz, Golfo Tsakumis
“East Meets West” The Arts and Letters Committee is a volunteer committee formed to support public events and lectures at the Stavros Niarchos Centre of Hellenic Studies at Simon Fraser University, which reports to the Director of Hellenic Studies. The mission of the committee is to organize lectures and events that are open to the community at large that compliment the ideals of Hellenism. To this aim, the Committee held their first event at SFU Harbour Centre with the theme of “East meets West”. Two components of this theme were made available to students, academics, and the general public through a lecture followed by an art show. Michael J. Hunter’s lecture “Masters & Philosophers: Comparing early Chinese and Ancient Greek Thought” was extremely well received by the attendees. The artists Dehai Wang and Golfo Tsakumis then rendered a visual display of “East meets West”.
Guest Speaker : Michael J. Hunter
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Artist : Dehai Wang
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Public Lectures and Events
Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ Visit By James Horncastle
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n February the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Centre for Hellenic Studies was honoured to host Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Greek Member of Parliament for Athens B and shadow minister for the environment, to speak to students at SFU, as well as the Fraser Institute about the economic crisis in Greece. Mr. Mitsotakis was very optimistic about the future of Greece. While Mr. Mitsotakis realized that there were significant structural issues to overcome, he stated that members of all the major parties agreed that reforms were needed. The audience at the Fraser Institute were somewhat reassured that while Greece may face significant economic and social problems that with capable political leadership this economic and social imbalance will be readdressed.
Bill Tsakoumis (L) and Mr. Kyriakos Mitsotakis (R) at the podium.
as a senior investment officer. At Alpha Ventures, he executed venture capital and private equity transactions in Greece and the Balkans. In 1999 Kyriakos joined the National Bank of Greece, the largest Greek financial institution, to set up the bank’s private equity and venture capital operation. He was the chief executive officer of NBG Venture Capital from its inception in December 1999 until April 2003. Under Kyriakos’ leadership, NBG Venture Capital established itself as one the leading venture capital and private equity firms in Greece and Southeastern Europe.
Dr. André Gerolymatos (L) and Mr. Kyriakos Mitsotakis (R)
Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ Bio:
K
yriakos Mitsotakis is a Greek parliamentarian and the son of former Greek Prime Minister Konstantinos Mitsotakis. Kyriakos studied at Havard where he received the Hoopes and Tocqueville prizes for outstanding undergraduate thesis on the subject of U.S. foreign policy towards Greece. He later earned an MBA from Harvard Business School and MA in International Relations from Stanford University. After several years working in London as a financial analyst with Chase Investment Bank and a consultant with McKinsey and Company, he returned to Greece in 1997 to join Alpha Ventures, the venture capital subsidiary of Alpha Bank,
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In 2003, he was nominated by the World Economic Forum as a Global Leader of Tomorrow (GLT) for his professional achievements. In April 2003, Kyriakos resigned from NBG Venture Capital to pursue a career in politics. He was elected to the Hellenic Parliament in 2004, 2007, and again in 2009 as a member of the New Democracy party, representing the Athens B constituency, which encompasses most of the city of Athens. As a representative, he has submitted hundreds of parliamentary questions tackling problems facing his constituency, focusing in particular on issues related to the environment and educational policy. Kyriakos is currently a member of New Democracy Party. Between 2007 and 2009 he served as the Chairman of the Environment Committee of the Hellenic Parliament. Biographical information provided by the Fraser Institute. Scan me for further information about Mr. Mitsotakis and video of his talk
Debt Crisis Conference By Dimitris Krallis
Professor Stavros Thomadakis (University of Athens) (L), Professor Emilios Avgouleas (University of Edinburgh) (R)
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he Debt, Sovereignty, and Civil Society Conference is a multidisciplinary conference organized and funded by the SNF Centre for Hellenic Studies at Simon Fraser University,the Centre for South East European Studies at the University of Oxford, Hellenic Studies Program at California State University, Sacramento, the Foundation for International, Comparative, and Federal Law, History Department at Simon Fraser University, School of International Studies at Simon Fraser University and the Consulate General of Greece in Vancouver. In the aftermath of the financial crash of 2008 that started as a banking crisis morphed into a broad systemic challenge on states and trans-national bodies such as the European Union. Debt, Sovereignty, and Civil Society looks at the Greek aspect of this global crisis, locates the seeds of current events in history, and examines its effects on sovereign nations. Finally our conference examines the response of civil society to the demands of supranational institutions and to the abstract forces of world finance,fulfilling SFU’s commitment to engage the world.
Participants: Othon Anastasakis (University of Oxford), Valia Aranitou (University of Crete) , Lawrin Armstrong (University of Toronto), Emilios Avgouleas (University of Edinburgh), Alec Dawson (SFU), Professor George Dertilis (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales), Jon Driver (SFU), Steve Easton (SFU), André Gerolymatos (SFU), Gaston Gordillo (UBC), Kostis Kornetis (Brown University), Dimitris Krallis (SFU), Katerina Lagos (California State University, Sacramento), Edward McWhinney (SFU Emeritus), Ian Mulgrew (Vancouver Sun), Dimitris Papadimitriou (Manchester University), Álvaro Pereira (Minister of Economy and Labour, Portugal / SFU), Michalis Spourdalakis (University of Athens), Stavros Thomadakis (University of Athens) When: April 26th & 27th, 2012. Where: Strategy Room 320 at the Morris J Wosk Centre for Dialogue (Simon Fraser University Vancouver) West Hastings Street Vancouver, BC.
“Finally our conference examines the response of civil society to the demands of supranational institutions and to the abstract forces of world finance,fulfilling SFU’s commitment to engage the world.” —Dimitris Krallis
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Presentation to the U.S. Peace Institute by Dr. André Gerolymatos on Greece’s Contribution in the Second World War By Dr. André Gerolymatos
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r. André Gerolymatos gave a presentation to representatives from think tanks such as the Brookings Institute, the US Senate, Congress, the White House, and the State Department as well as to other influential participants. The Onassis Foundation sponsored Dr. Gerolymatos’ presentation to the U.S. Peace Institute.
His Eminence Archbishop Demetrios of America presenting Congressman Gilman the Greatest Generation Award on behalf of his fellow American WWII Veterans — From L to R: Archbishop Demetrios of America; The Hon. Benjamin A. Gilman; and Andrew E. Manatos at National World War II Memorial.
(From L to R) Tom C. Korologos, U.S. Institute for Peace Advisory Council; Dr. André Gerolymatos; Andrew E. Manatos, President and Founder of The Washington Oxi Day Foundation; His Excellency Pavlos Anastasiades, Ambassador of Cyprus to the US.
The event was organized by Manatos and Manatos, a Washington DC law firm with the intent to educate American policy-makers on how Greece played a pivotal role in the Second World by defeating the Italian Army in 1940, waging a desperate struggle against the German Armed forces in Spring and Summer 1941, which delayed Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union. The delay resulted in the failure of the Germany Army to capture Moscow and contributed to Germany’s ultimate defeat.
“The Washington Oxi Day Foundation is a nonprofit, 501c3 organization dedicated to informing American policymakers and the public about the profound role Greece played in bringing about the outcome of World War II and celebrating modern day heroes who exhibit the same courage as the Greeks did in continuing to fight to preserve and promote freedom and democracy around the world.”
2012 Black Tie Dinner — From L to R: Ted Spyropoulos , Erika Spyropoulos, Beverley Gerolymatos, Dr. André Gerolymatos
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Faculty & Staff News
Welcome New Faculty and Staff Dr. Eirini Kotsovili
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orn and raised in Athens, I received my secondary education from Greece’s oldest school, Arsakeio (est. 1836). Upon completing my secondary education, I left Greece so as to pursue my studies abroad. I received my B.A in History/ Hispanic studies from McGill University, and then my M.St and Ph.D in Literature/Modern Languages from University of Oxford where I also taught Greek literature and language. I am the latest addition to the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Centre for Hellenic Studies at Simon Fraser University, where I currently teach and conduct research on Greek literature (with interests in Modern Greek and Comparative Literature, life-writing, gender, identity and politics, war literature).
Dr. Eirini Kotsovili
Dr. Evdoxios Doxiadis
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r. Evdoxios Doxiadis completed his PhD at the University of California, Berkeley in 2007. He was the Ted and Elaine Athanassiades post-doctoral fellow at Princeton University from 2007 to 2008, and has worked at the International Center for Hellenic and Mediterranean Studies and at San Francisco State University from 2008 to 2012 when he moved to Simon Fraser University in Vancouver Canada. Has Published several articles and his book The Shackles of Modernity: Women, Property, and the Transition from the Ottoman Empire to the Modern Greek State 17501850 A.D., was published last year (February 2012) at the Cultural Politics, Socioaesthetics, Beginnings Series of Harvard University Press. Dr. Evdoxios Doxiadis
Colleen Pescott
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orn in Vancouver and raised in South Delta, Colleen is a 6th generation Canadian who has lived in Cloverdale for the past 10 years. Colleen graduated from Simon Fraser University in June 2012. Coincidentally, she accepted the offer to be Program Assistant for the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Centre for Hellenic Studies on the same day as her convocation ceremony. Colleen is re-entering the work force after being at home raising her son for the past five years. After just over six months at the Centre, she is very grateful for the skills she gained from her previous working experience at BC Children’s Hospital Radiology Department and lifeguarding, using these abilities to navigate the remarkable and inspiring environment that is Hellenic Studies.
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Awards
Publications
Dr. André Gerolymatos received the following awards in 2012:
• Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal
Evdoxios Doxiadis. The Shackles of Modernity: Women, Property, and the Transition from the Ottoman Empire to the Greek State, 1750-1850. New York: Harvard University Press, 2012.
“By Command of Her Majesty The Queen, the Diamond Jubilee Medal is presented to you in commemoration of the sixtieth anniversary of Her Majesty’s Accession to the Throne and in recognition of your contribution to Canada.”
• President’s Award for Service Through Public Affairs and Media Relations (Awarded 2 February 2012) “SFU faculty members—professors Krzysztof (Kris) Starosta during the Fukushima crisis and André Gerolymatos during the Arab Spring insurrections—went to extraordinary lengths to meet the media’s needs.” Dimitris Krallis. Michael Attaleiates and the Politics of Imperial Decline in Eleventh-century Byzantium. Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2012.
• B.C. Sugar Achievement Award (Awarded 24 May 2012) “To Simon Fraser University Faculty who meet the following criteria: winner of national or international prize or award , and have demonstrated a history of leadership in their field and accomplishments directly related to responsibilities and activities at Simon Fraser University.”
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Dr. Dimitris Krallis’ Recent Activities
Dr. Evdoxios Doxiadis’ Conference in Austria
Dr. Dimitris Krallis
Dr. Evdoxios Doxiadis
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Confluences series of the Arizona Centre for Medieval
New Gender Structure? Codifying the Law as a process of
and Renaissance Studies, Dr. Krallis was tenured at SFU.
inscribing Gender Structure”. The conference was part of
In September he was promoted to Associate Professor and
the celebrations for the bicentennial of the introduction of
soon after, in October, his English translation of Michael
the Austrian Civil Code, as well as the 7th biennial confer-
Attaleiates’ History, collaboratively prepared with professor
ence of the International Research Network “Gender Dif-
Anthony Kaldellis, was published by Harvard University
ferences in the History of European Legal Cultures” and
Press. Over the course of 2012 Dr. Krallis presented four
brought specialists on questions of women and law from all
papers at international conferences and symposia in Ann
over Europe. Papers examined the codification of law from
Arbor, Oxford, and Leeds. Having made four submissions
the middle ages to the 20th century in Austria, Germany,
to journals and edited collective volumes, Dr. Krallis an-
Italy, Czechoslovakia, Croatia, Greece, and the impact
ticipates the publication of a number of already accepted
such codifications had on women, gender structures, and
peer-reviewed articles in the coming two years. In April
gender perceptions. Dr. Doxiadis presented a paper titled
of 2012, Dr. Krallis organized the Debt, Sovereignty, and
“Class and Gender in the Mid-Nineteenth Century Greek
Civil Society Conference, an international event that tack-
Courts” in which he examined the debates over the crea-
led the current Greek crisis. He also participated in the two
tion of the modern Greek judicial system following the es-
business trips taken by Hellenic Studies Center delegations
tablishment of the modern Greek state, and the impact of
to Greece. Since September 2012 Dr. Krallis has been on
this system on women as shown through the evidence of
Sabbatical leave and over the fall term he was Visiting Fel-
the court cases that appeared in from of the Appeal Court
low at University College, Oxford in the UK.
of Athens.
n the month of May, shortly after the publication of his book titled: Michael Attaleiates and the Politics of Imperial
Decline in Eleventh Century Byzantium with the Medieval
rom September 13th to September 15th 2012, Dr. Evdoxios Doxiadis participated in a conference organized
by the University of Innsbruck, Austria titled “New Law -
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Student News
Congratulations to our Graduates!
Mirjana Petrovic with son Aleksandar Petrovic who receives his PhD in History during the June convocation 2012.
Sarah Inglis receives Bachelor of Arts: major in History and Certificate in Hellenic Studies during June convocation 2012.
Awards and Scholarships • Stavros Niarchos Graduate Fellowship in Hellenic Studies
• Nick Kravariotis Memorial Graduate Scholarship in Hellenic Studies • Katevatis Graduate Scholarship Hellenic Studies • SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship (20122015) Christopher Dickert
James Horncastle
• VPR Undergraduate Student Research Award (VPR USRA) • Stavros Niarchos Graduate Fellowship in Hellenic Studies
Sarah Inglis
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“The Nick Kravariotis Memorial Graduate Scholarship in Hellenic Studies valued at a portion of the interest earned on the Endowment, will be awarded annually in the Fall term. The scholarship will be awarded on the basis of academic excellence to students who are enrolled in the Hellenic Studies Graduate Program at Simon Fraser University. Preference will be given to students in the fields covered by Hellenic History from Byzantium to the modern period.”
Researching in England and Spain By Sarah Inglis
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n 8 June 2012 I packed my bags and left to do historical research at archives in both the United Kingdom and Spain. The first stop on my journey was London, where I stayed for two weeks. Within hours of landing at Gatwick I made my way to the National Archives and began my research for Dr. Gerolymatos on the history of the American Special Forces during the Second World War. After spending one week at the National Archives I proceeded to the Liddell Hart Military Archive to look at documents on the Special Operations Executive (SOE) in Greece and the origins of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), which provided the Allies with vital military and political intelligence in the Second World War. On the last day, I went to the Imperial War Museum Archive where I listened to several reports by Greek combatants who fought with the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War. After this rare opportunity of hearing living history, I carried on with my research interests by examining the weaponry and vehicles on display. British Intelligence during the 20th Century is also elaborated upon in the museum’s exhibits. The next phase of my journey brought me to Madrid. I went to the archive at Ministry of Foreign Affairs to research Spanish-Greek relations from 1936-1939. This was by far the most impressive looking archive I have ever witnessed. Located next to the Plaza Mayor, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is filled with beautiful paintings and granite floors, which, most importantly keep the building cool during the summer. A few
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Madrid, Spain
Imperial War Museum, London.
days later I went to San Fernando de Henares, which was a major battlefield in the Battle for Madrid in the Spanish Civil War. I also visited the palace at San Lorenzo de El Escorial, which housed the Madrid Skylitzes. This manuscript covers the reigns of the Byzantine emperors, from Nicephoros I in 811 to John IV in 1057. After completing my research in Madrid, I left for Salamanca (a town two-and-a-half hours by car north- west of Madrid) to look for information about Balkan members of the International Brigades. In Salamanca, there is the Centro Documental de la Memoria Histórica, which holds more than 150,000 boxes of documents that pertain to the Spanish Civil War. A few days later I went to Burgos (a city approximately three hours by car North-East of Salamanca) to visit General Franco’s headquarters during the Spanish Civil War, which is now, to my amazement, a school. After that, I traveled to the town Avila (a town approximately three hours South-West by car from Burgos) to visit the General Military Archive to examine records of arms dealing by Prodomos Bodosakis-Athanassiadis to the Spanish Republic. Bodosakis Gun Powder and Cartridge Company (GPCC) supplied weapons to the Spanish left on behalf of Nazi Herman Goering. The experiences of my research travels are ones that I will always treasure. This trip allowed me to learn about a variety of topics, gain archival experience, and further my interest in Greek participation in the Spanish Civil War.
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Back Cover
Meet the Team
Dr. André Gerolymatos Director, Professor
Costa Dedegikas Technology Manager, SNF New Media Lab
Maria Hamilton Manager
Colleen Pescott Program Assistant
Sally Xiaoyun Huang Researcher, SNF New Media Lab
Dr. Dimitris Krallis Associate Professor
Dr. Evdoxios Doxiadis Lecturer, Academic Coordinator
Oree Gianacopoulos Maria Kalogeropoulou Community Outreach Adjunct Professor
Anne Klein Budget Clerk
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“AGORA” Volunteer Team
Beverley Gerolymatos and Tiggy Managing Editor
Jamie Horncastle Assistant Managing Editor
Yidi Hou Newsletter Designer
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Dr. Eirini Kotsovili Greek Language Coordinator
Sarah Inglis Research Assistant